Take The Way Left
by Ezekiellia
Summary: Scout's life doesn't end at age eight. Children of the great depression become social activists in the 1950s and 60s, and after learning her valuable childhood lessons, Scout goes on to be a speech giver for the socialist movement, while Jem pursues a career as a lawyer. But conflict is not over - shadows from their childhood have eventually crept back to haunt them once more.


**Disclaimer: The author of this work of fanfiction does not own any of the characters, settings or ideas presented in the novel _To Kill A Mockingbird_. All rights belong to Harper Lee.**

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It did not matter. Old and young, coloured or not, a squash of people bunched back into their seats after a break that hardly dried their sweat from the summer heat of Alabama. The striped metal microphone squealed, and when it was finally working, hushes spread down the rows at a woman with a screaming baby.

"Thank you, thank you," The man at the microphone said, drowning whispers, "I do hope the refreshments were satisfying." A wave of snickers came from the back, making him pause for a moment, but he continued briefly, "For the second half, I present you Miss Jean Louise Finch."

Coming up onto the stage, she brushed away her shyness with a warm smile. She dressed modestly in a shirt and flower-patterned skirt that hung straight down from the belt. "First of all I'd like to thank the host, Mister Halls," Jean Louise said into the microphone, "For giving me a chance to speak here today."  
The man nodded from the corner and she spoke again, "I heard many of you have read my memoir, To Kill A Mockingbird, which details the Robinson case that was brought to national attention last year with the movement, and I must say I'm pleased about that."  
Jean Louise waved a gesture to a person in the back and he plugged a projector, which strew a picture of an overalled man's mug shot onto the whitewashed wall.  
"This," She pointed, "ironically, is the only known photograph of Tom Robinson, taken when he was sentenced to a prison that'd soon kill him. His case, and many alike that have never come to light, are the reason we are here today. Thanking to the great people around us, such as Mister Bayard Rustin, and of course the younger generation of activists like Martin Luther King Junior, many things have changed since my childhood, when I first witnessed injustice in the trials I attended following my father. When I was this tall."  
She lifted her hand a couple of feet from the stage floor. "When we strive like my father did for common justice, soon, maybe in a couple of years time, maybe longer, hopefully before I'm too old..." A few people chuckled. "Before I'm too old, justice will be more than just a word in our mouths, and everyone, be they European, Negro, Hispanic, Asian, won't work twelve hours a day to put food on their family's table. The socialist movement proposes that one day we will all work eight hours a day, at fair wages, regardless of what color we are. And nobody, nobody, will call anybody a nigger-lover again."  
Some people chortled, but others grew graver as Jean Louise proceeded to describe the Robinson case at length; the trial, the sentence, and how his family suffered from his absence, finishing with her awkward experience of the near-stabbing in a ham suit. She had expected a few laughs from the audience, but surprisingly not a soul did. Then finally, a clock in the distance struck one, time for lunch. The audience filed out, squeezing into the trimming shade. Once the hall was empty, Jean Louise stood on stage and looked at the projection of the Robinson trial, with Mayella's slumped figure on one side, a black dot in the grey photograph, and Atticus questioning her on the other.

"You spoke great, Scout," A voice said beside her.

"You were listenin', Jem? Was it good?"

"I reckon so. The cabbie's out there, shouldn't keep him waitin'." They walked down the steps and Jean Louise climbed into the back seat. There came the shrill rumble of the black car's engine, and off it drove down the street. It would not stop for three hours until it reached the bustling old town of Maycomb.  
The town had grown since the great depression, as businesses bloomed and new houses crept up on the ends of streets. More families moved in and the schoolhouse swelled to twice the size it was when Jean Louise attended.  
Then there was the dreaded tree that she and Jem always evaded ever since the night of the Halloween pageant, and the cracking planks on the Radley porch, stripped of its dry paint.  
Since Mister Nathan Radley died of lung cancer in 1955, the Finches had gone to great lengths convincing the authorities not to demolish the Radley house. For all they knew, someone was still living in there, someone they hadn't seen for twenty years.  
They deferred the authorities and every Sunday Jean Louise remembered to drop off a bag of groceries in the yard with grass so long nobody could see it. The next day it would be gone, and in its place a torn piece of the paper grocery bag sometimes scrawled with a crude picture of a girl with bangs, or otherwise a sack of garbage.

Jean Louise entered her house, closed the creaky door behind her, flung down her purse and changed into overalls in the bathroom. Immune to all the reconstruction following the growth, the Finch house stood unchanged for four decades, solidly entailed down the male line and now comfortably under Jem's name. "But everything's modern now, Mister Finch," said Mark Clifford, their new neighbour, when he first moved in, "You should get rid of those glass lamps. And the white curtains, they're ancient!"

"I most certainly won't," was Jem's reply every time, until finally Mister Clifford gave up and left him alone.

In the living room Jean Louise poured a cup of coffee for herself and her brother. On the tea-table stood photograph after photograph; memories of the unchanging house. In the middle, bordered by an ebony frame, was a picture of Atticus in his lawyer suit, beaming behind wide-rimmed glasses. It was surrounded by a black and white collage of Jem holding his football, kicking his football, grabbing his football, washing his football. Atticus's rocking chair stood beside the rug, and the morning newspapers were neatly spread on the arm, exactly as his consistence liked it.

Jean Louise sat on the chair and took a sip of coffee, reading from a magazine. Jem grabbed his bag and opened the door, "Scout, I gotta go."

"Where to, Attorney Jem?"

"The court's just called. There's been a case yonder in the city, a company fraud," He put on his hat, "They're wantin' my help."

"Go on then," Jean Louise said absent-mindedly, turning another page of her magazine, "And remember what Atticus said about cases like that?"

"Yessum, don't assume guilt on either party or individual 'till you've heard it all," He closed the door behind himself, leaving his half-drunk coffee on the table. A warm gush of wind swept in.  
Jean Louise sat reading her magazine for a long time, until a shout outside broke her silent solitude, "Mail!"  
A letter fell on the doormat. Jean Louise sighed impatiently, grabbed it and tore it open, sitting back into the chair.  
She shook out of her daze when the letter read _Dear Scout_ instead of _Dear Miss Jean Louise Finch_. She had received none so informal since she began her job as a speech giver for the activists' society of Alabama.  
The letter talked of, in its highly messy writing, being arrested for theft and manslaughter and needing urgent help. She skimmed through it. In the end it said, _after this I__'__ll come back to Maycomb and marry you, Scout. _

A 'yours sincerely' was half written and scribbled out, leaving only the last word _Dill_. Jean Louise almost dropped the paper. Dill killed someone? She got up from her seat, grabbed her bag and arrived shortly at the train station. "When's the next train to Meridian?"

"Seven o'clock...Miss," The clerk eyed her up and down. It was only then that Jean Louise remembered she was still wearing her overalls and looked like a horribly unkempt working country woman. If she went home now, she would miss the last train to Meridian, and she knew what could happen to people who committed homicide. They got the chair, with smoke sizzling from their scalps.  
"One ticket, please."

As she sat on the train staring at the scenes flashing outside the window, Jean Louise thought of the time Walter Cunningham gave her a sack of chestnuts for a seat in the hall of her next speech. Then in her mind popped up a vision of Dill in the chair, with electrodes all over his hands and feet. She shook her head violently and grabbed the edge of window. The scar on her left hand shone in the waning sunlight and she thought, _better have an unladylike scar on the wedding ring finger than never have a wedding ring put on it. _

_**~End Of First Chapter~**_


End file.
